Thursday, May 1, 2008

Doggie Doo

My daughter is back from college for a while. One of her jobs when she is home is to scoop the prodigious amounts of poo that our mutt Kayla produces. This morning she asked me why we don’t compost it. We compost almost everything else organic. I told her about the pathogens carried by doggie doo and how we don’t want to transmit them to our food. Which is all true, but it got me thinking. There is nothing wrong with composting it as long as I keep it out of the veggie garden. Our backyard is natural forest and could be well fed by my dog’s output. I could even do something as simple as trench composting. But instead I’ve decided to do the traditional way of such composting. This is to dig a hole, somewhere between 18” and 3”. Then add your dog’s gift, maybe throw a few leaves over it and cover it with a lid. Every week or so, throw in some water. I’m assuming the lid keeps the smell down. Also to start it off it is best to add some septic tank starter. There is a wonderful little YouTube video that describes one way of doing it. My way is not nearly as elaborate. It is just a hole in the ground about 18” deep. If it fills up, I’ll cover it up and fertilize a different section of trees.

1 comment:

You are kind enough to dig a hole at least. ;) I have so many trees bordering my yard I generally lay a few pieces at the roots of each and rake over some leaves. Only in high summer or when I do Spring clean up do I bother with a hole.

About Me

I've been gardening for almost three decades now, ever since my husband and I bought our first house. Every garden has been different. The first was small and the soil was almost pure sand. The second was larger and I had heavy clay. The third and current one which is just outside of Boston, is by far the largest even though the lot is by far the smallest. Since we bought the house new, we designed the landscaping ourselves, and the soil we added was fairly good. My challenge here is the location. We are so close to our neighbors that their houses can shade the garden.